On April 28, 1945, footage was taken of 2,000 female concentration camp survivors gathered at the harbor in Malmö, Sweden. Many appear remarkably relaxed, smiling and waving for the camera as it pans past them on the crowded dock. Outside of the excited mass, the camera captures more pensive faces — women whose trauma is etched on their brows, their faces worn from the horrors they’ve experienced. Among them stands a stoic Asian woman, still dressed in her striped concentration camp coat, her face an enigmatic blank.
When documentary filmmaker Magnus Gertten saw the footage of that day, he knew he wanted to find out more about as many of the women as he could. Particularly, he was desperate to find out about the mysterious woman in the striped coat. What or who was she thinking about when the camera caught her immovable gaze? Where did she end up? And did she ever find a happy ending?
New documentary Nelly & Nadine answers all of those questions over the course of its engrossing 90 minutes. The woman in the archival footage was named Nadine Hwang. The daughter of the Chinese ambassador to Spain, Hwang had lived proudly as a lesbian long before the war, moving in prestigious bohemian and literary circles. While incarcerated at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, she met and fell in love with a singer named Claire “Nelly” Mousset-Vos. Their relationship ultimately helped them both endure the atrocities of World War II; their deep love a powerful catalyst for survival. But standing on the dock that day, Hwang had no idea if the love of her life was even still alive, or if she would ever see her again.
The couple’s story, both during and after the war, is told in Nelly & Nadine via what they so painstakingly left behind: Super 8 home movies, personal correspondence, Hwang’s extensive photo and letter collection and, most importantly, Mousset-Vos’ vivid and heart-wrenching diaries. For decades, Hwang and Mousset-Vos’ personal effects sat in a steel box in the home of the latter’s granddaughter, Sylvie Bianchi — a woman who found herself so heartbroken by its contents, she long refused to read them in any depth. Bianchi’s decision to finally do so is at the center of Nelly & Nadine. It is her grandmother’s relationship, however, that becomes the film’s heart.
